Being atheist and wanting to seek God again

[The best and greatest]

I was about to say something along these lines, although I would like to offer the caveat that this sort of spiritual introspection can also sometimes be taken too far. One of the major disagreements I have with Buddhism concerns the way that it disconnects people from important aspects of their lives by encouraging them to regress into constant meditation, and I would argue that the meaning this offers people is just as illusory as the one offered by monotheism. Both approaches placate people as a substitute for true meaning and happiness.

I would say that the best approach is to have a healthy balance between the internal and the external. On the one hand, it is important to form an emotional connection to something greater than yourself (even if it is only material), but on the other, it is also important to introspect and not lose touch with your own identity and conscience in the process.



Why would that give you pause? Are you trying to say that I have ever been wrong on the internet?

But again, as with the higher power talk, just what is "True happiness" and how can anyone say when they've "Truly" found it? Perhaps we'll never be happy and to actively seek happiness is what in fact makes you unhappy to begin with, that longing for something illusory, ill defined and forever just out of reach.

Maybe it is his desire for something that does not and never has existed that causes him to suffer? His unwillingness to accept the world for what it is, in all its glorious senseless absurdity? Not every question has an answer, not every debt is paid for. Such is life. Some would even argue its what makes life worth living, having horrible awful experiences to juxtapose the good ones are what make the good ones so precious and dear to us.

 

[ProgKing of the North]

Wait if he has a mouth in his stomach where do the dudes he eats with his headmouth go?

Also this picture is metal as fuck

 

[ni-]

Wait if he has a mouth in his stomach where do the dudes he eats with his headmouth go?

Also this picture is metal as fuck

All hell images look like they'd be great 90's era metal album covers
here's a few more for ya

 

[Hoopla]

Barring the logic of a shitpost, you actually chose a sister-fucking, crybaby, serial rapist, animal fucker over the dude who healed the sick, fed the hungry, gave to the poor and died for the sins of Humanity for free.

Second one sounds like a fucking faggot

 

[Doctor D]

Hello! I have found that I cannot describe my spiritual beliefs well enough. Luckily I have a book that shares my beliefs. I would like to share it with all of you, if you are willing to read. Remember to read between the lines: words are just vessels to convey meaning. Hope you get something out of this book.

 

[drtoboggan]

Are @Jacob Harrison threads getting to you? You can always be one of his "secret agents."

 

[MW 590]

I'm a devout Christian but I was an Atheist my whole life before that, and currently I'm just a catechuman. Aquinas' cosmological arguments resonated with me particularly his take on good and evil, with the greatest, realest good being God, and the greatest evil its antithesis or absence. Personally I'm involved in the real life tradcaths (not the internet deus vult exceptional individuals) and go to latin mass at my SSPX church whenever I can, I find that the traditional Catholics are some of the nicest people I've ever met and would recommend going just to meet people like that, from a completely secular standpoint.

You should go to a Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter Latin Mass not a SSPX one. I am a traditionalist Catholic but I know that the SSPX is in partial schism because Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated 4 bishops without papal approval violating canon law and was therefore excommunicated. In reaction many SSPX members left and established the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. While the excommunications of the 4 bishops were lifted in 2009, the Society is not in full communion.

 

[ni-]

You should go to a Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter Latin Mass not a SSPX one. I am a traditionalist Catholic but I know that the SSPX is in partial schism because Archbishop Lefebvre consecrated 4 bishops without papal approval violating canon law and was therefore excommunicated. In reaction many SSPX members left and established the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. While the excommunications of the 4 bishops were lifted in 2009, the Society is not in full communion.

I know they're canonically irregular but the schism is being mended and their services are valid according to the current pope. I still can't go to FSSP anyway because my city doesn't have them, just SSPX.

 

[Slap47]

@Sidon's fleshlight You should become Catholic as it is validated by the most evidence.

Here is how you can narrow it down to Catholicism.

Christianity and Islam are the only religions that believe that non believers get punished with eternal hellfire so the first step is to narrow it down to those religions as your safest bet.

Next, compare the evidence of Christianity vs Islam and you will find that Islam plagiarized many things from Christianity and the fact that Christianity spread quickly but peacefully while Islam spread by the sword which indicates that people converted to Christianity willingly based on evidence. Christianity prevailed in spite of facing persecution, and if Jesus was not the resurrected son of God, why would the Apostles be willing to die for a lie.

Then consider the evidence for which denomination of Christianity is the true church and you will see that Catholicism has the most evidence. It has the most documented miracles, visits from angels and saints, and apparitions of the Virgin Mary.

The Caliphates expanded rapidly but it actually took hundreds of years for the people to convert. "People of the book" were respected but Muslims were given special treatment.

Its literally the same system that Christianity used to spread under the Roman Empire. There is also numerous examples of Christianity being forced upon people -> Charlemagne and the Saxons, New World, etc. The Roman Empire itself actually had several civil wars between Pagans and Christians.

The largest Muslim countries were actually never conquered by the Caliphates (Indonesia, etc).

Both religions have been peaceful and violent. The Wars of Religion were borderline genocidal and the height of the Umayyad Caliphate was a relatively tranquil time.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Uhh op... this is rather fallacious thinking, from my point of view.

You're unhappy with humanity for whatever reason, understandable.

So why are you an atheist now? Just sort of by default? Are you sure you're an atheist, or are you more of one of those "mad at god" style atheists?

But now you're saying "Lie to me about a good fantasy to distract me". Why not play a video game or watch a movie if that's what you want? Why are you looking to adapt an entire belief system?

I'm a godless atheist heathen so make of that what you will...

 

[mr.moon1488]

Read the bible, go back to church. I'd suggest only a chapter a day, and many people prefer to start with the new testament since it's a little more relevant to day to day life. For the church, try to find one you like. It may not be the denomination you grew up with. One thing I've always disagreed with most people on is that I think the bible reading is far more important than church attendance. A priest, or pastor can spin the hell out of things by reading just select passages, but if you read it for yourself, you don't have to worry about that.

 

[ProgKing of the North]

Read the bible, go back to church. I'd suggest only a chapter a day, and many people prefer to start with the new testament since it's a little more relevant to day to day life. For the church, try to find one you like. It may not be the denomination you grew up with. One thing I've always disagreed with most people on is that I think the bible reading is far more important than church attendance. A priest, or pastor can spin the hell out of things by reading just select passages, but if you read it for yourself, you don't have to worry about that.

Honest question: how will reading the Bible help convince somebody the Bible is true? By that logic reading ANY book would convince somebody that what's in that book is true.

Obviously reading the Bible is the only way of understanding what's in the Bible, but how does that bring about the leap that what's in the book is the True and Honest Word of God?

Or, to phrase it another way, if I sat down with a Bible and a Quran, I'd probably come up with the impression that the Bible is a better guide to life between the two. But what would make me come away with the impression that the Bible is a true historical account while the Quran is a bunch of bullshit?

 

[mr.moon1488]

Honest question: how will reading the Bible help convince somebody the Bible is true? By that logic reading ANY book would convince somebody that what's in that book is true.

Obviously reading the Bible is the only way of understanding what's in the Bible, but how does that bring about the leap that what's in the book is the True and Honest Word of God?

Or, to phrase it another way, if I sat down with a Bible and a Quran, I'd probably come up with the impression that the Bible is a better guide to life between the two. But what would make me come away with the impression that the Bible is a true historical account while the Quran is a bunch of bullshit?

Honest question: how will reading this post help convince somebody that this post is true? By that logic reading ANY post would convince somebody that what's in that post is true.

Obviously reading this post is the only way of understanding what's in this post, but how does that bring about the leap that what's in this post is the True, and Honest Word of posters.

tldr: You can't really ever honestly decide if you think an argument is true, or not, if you never bother to hear it.

As to the Quran vs the Bible thing, I can understand people who might doubt the accuracy of both, but you have to really be an exceptional individual the believe in the Quran's historical accuracy, and not the Bible's accuracy. Pretty much everything in the Quran was "because Mohammed said so," whereas in the bible, you do have many non-Christian sources corroborating many of the accounts.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Honest question: how will reading this post help convince somebody that this post is true? By that logic reading ANY post would convince somebody that what's in that post is true.

Obviously reading this post is the only way of understanding what's in this post, but how does that bring about the leap that what's in this post is the True, and Honest Word of posters.

tldr: You can't really ever honestly decide if you think an argument is true, or not, if you never bother to hear it.

As to the Quran vs the Bible thing, I can understand people who might doubt the accuracy of both, but you have to really be an exceptional individual the believe in the Quran's historical accuracy, and not the Bible's accuracy. Pretty much everything in the Quran was "because Mohammed said so," whereas in the bible, you do have many non-Christian sources corroborating many of the accounts.

The bible doesn't make a whole lot of arguments. It makes many assertions. Assertions can't convince you, just brainwash.

A good post makes a good argument, and thus can prove more than just the fact that a thing was actually said.

It's true you can't decide if an argument is true or false without hearing it, but I don't have to hear a bunch of unsupported assertions to tell you if they're unsupported assertions then I'm not going to just assume they're true.

 

[Dorcas]

Repent and submit to the will of the one holy and Roman Catholic Church, the one sole source of salvation.

 

[mr.moon1488]

The bible doesn't make a whole lot of arguments. It makes many assertions. Assertions can't convince you, just brainwash.

A good post makes a good argument, and thus can prove more than just the fact that a thing was actually said.

It's true you can't decide if an argument is true or false without hearing it, but I don't have to hear a bunch of unsupported assertions to tell you if they're unsupported assertions then I'm not going to just assume they're true.

I don't know where you're getting the idea that "it doesn't make a whole lot of arguments." Most of the new testament is Jesus making arguments. Maybe if you're talking about the old testament's rules, but even those typically have some degree of "why this is important" either directly explained, or exemplified at some point. Outside of this, you're just making an assertion about the bible, likely either from second hand knowledge from people who agree with you, or tidbits you've seen posted before.

 

[MW 590]

Uhh op... this is rather fallacious thinking, from my point of view.

You're unhappy with humanity for whatever reason, understandable.

So why are you an atheist now? Just sort of by default? Are you sure you're an atheist, or are you more of one of those "mad at god" style atheists?

But now you're saying "Lie to me about a good fantasy to distract me". Why not play a video game or watch a movie if that's what you want? Why are you looking to adapt an entire belief system?

I'm a godless atheist heathen so make of that what you will...

What confuses me is that if you are a godless heathen, then why do you oppose the Democratic party, the party of secularism? The solution to stopping the SJW madness is for society to become Christian again.

 

[idosometimes]

Buddhism looks pretty cool since it doesn't necessarily ask you to believe outlandish and irrational things for it to work. Really though the search for a "higher power" just seems like a pointless endeavor to me. How would its existence make your life tangibly better even if you did find it? How would you know when you found it? Its fine to seek some kind of inspired awakening of faith but I would advise against seeking some kind of savior to make you feel whole, that tends to end poorly for people.

Buddhism is neat only because it understands that dumb whores who get raped got what was coming to them. The idea behind karma is that you plant seed with your acts (intentions) and they eventually ripen into a fruit. This maturation is called karmaphala or vipaka. Christine Weston Chandler may be a selfless goddess who only does good in this life, but past life Christine must have been evil. Why else would the car stop working on the way home from the pony place? Justice served over different generations.

Retributive karma is rarely mentioned in western flavors of Buddhism, but it is very common in the East. This is why social justice types have a problem with karma. It blames the victim instead of whitey. Whitey has a good life, which Buddhism shows as evidence of good in past lives (though a truly good person would be born into a buddhist society). Karma and karmaphala absolve whitey of the guilt he should be feeling over some black kid robbing a liquor store instead of going to school.

 

[maalikthefakemuzzie]

You have every right to believe the world is turning towards a grizzly end. THE MINOR SIGNS FOR THE END OF TIMES HAVE ALREADY TAKEN PLACE.

 

[The best and greatest]

You have every right to believe the world is turning towards a grizzly end. THE MINOR SIGNS FOR THE END OF TIMES HAVE ALREADY TAKEN PLACE.

Hmm, are we that close to fusion power already?